Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/1035

Rh DTODORUS. by the side of one another without any intcnial connexion. In composing his Bibliotheca, Diodorus made use, independent of his own observations, of all sources which were accessible to him ; and had ho exercised any criticism or judgment, or rather liad he possessed any critical powers, his work might have been of incalculable value to the stu- dt'ut of history. But Diodorus did nothing but collect that which he found in his different authorities : he thus jumbled together history, niythus, and fiction ; he frequently misunderstood or mutilated his authorities, and not seldom con- tradicts in one passage what he has stated in an- other. The absence of criticism is manifest through- out the work, which is in fact devoid of all the higher requisites of a history. But notwithstand- ing all these drawbacks, the extant portion of this great compilation is to us of the highest importance, on account of the great mass of materials which are there collected from a number of writers whose works have perished. Diodonis frequently men- tions his authorities, and in most cases he has undoubtedly preserved the substance of his prede- cessors. (See Heyne, de FontUms et Auctorib. Hist. Diodoi-i, in the Commentat. Societ. Gotting. vols. V. and vii., and reprinted in the Bipont edi- tion of Diodorus, vol. i. p. xix. &c., which also contains a minute account of the plan of the history by J. N. Eyring, p. cv., &c.) The style of Diodorus is on the whole clear and lucid, but not always equal, which may be owing to the different character of the works he used or abridg- ed. His diction holds the middle between the archaic or refined Attic, and the vulgar Greek which was spoken in his time. (Phot. Bibl. Cod. 70.) The work of Diodorus was first published in Latin translations of separate parts, until Vine, Opsopaeus published the Greek text of books 16- 20, Basel, 1539, 4to., which was followed by H. Stephens's edition of books 1-5 and 11-20, with the excerpta of Photius, Paris, 1559, fol. The next important edition is that of N. Rhodomannus (Hanover, 1604, fol.), which contains a Latin translation. The great edition of P. Wesseling, with an extensive and very valuable commentary, as well as the Eclogae of Constantine Porphyroge- iiitus, as far as they were then known, appeared at Amsterdam, 1746, 2 vols. fol. This edition was reprinted, with some additions, at Bipont (1793, &c.) in 11 vols. 8vo. The best modern edition is that of L. Dindorf, Leipzig, 1828, 6 vols. 8vo. The new fragments discovered and published by A. Mai were edited, with many improvements, in a separate volume by L. Dindorf, Leipzig, 1828, 8vo. Wesseling's edition and the Bipont reprint of it contiiin 65 Latin letters attributed to Diodo- rus. They had first been published in Italian in Pietro Carrera's Storia di Calana, 1639, fol., and were then printed in a Latin version by Abraham Preiger in Burmann's Thesaur. Antig. SicU. vol. x. and in the old edition of Fabr. BiU. Gr. vol. xiv. p. 229, &c. The Greek original of these letters has never been seen by any one, and there can be little doubt but that these letters are a forgery made after the revival of letters. (Fabr. BibL Gr. iv. p. 373, &c.) 13. OfSiNOPE. See below. 14. Of Syracuse, is mentioned by Pliny (f/. A^. Elench. lib. iii. and v.) among the authorities he consulted on geographical subjects. DIODOKUS. 1017 15. Of T^u.sus (Hosych. s. v. AiaySpas), a grammarian who is mentioned by Atheniieus (xi. p. 479) as the author ot yKwaaai 'IraAj/caf, and of a work irpos AvK6<ppopa (xi. p. 478). He appears to be the same as the Diodorus referred to in two other passages of Athenaeus (xi. p. 501, xiv. p. 642). It may also be that he is the same as the gramma- rian whom Eustathius describes as a disciple ot follower of Aristophanes of Byzantium. (Villoison, Proleg. ad Horn. II. p. 29.) 16. Sumamed Trvphon, lived about A. D. 278, and is described by Epiphanius {de Mens, ac Po7id. 20) as a good man and of wonderful piety. He was presbyter in the village of Diodoris and a friend of bishop Archelaus. When Manes took refuge in his house, he was at first kindly received ; but when Diodorus was informed, by a letter of Archelaus, of the heresies of Manes, and when he began to see through the cunning of the heretic, he had a disputation with him, in which he is said triumphantly to have refuted his errors. (Phot. Bill. Cod. 85.) A letter of Archelaus to Diodorus is still extant, and printed in Valesius's edition of Socrates, p. 200. 17. Of Tyre, a Peripatetic philosopher, a disci- ple and follower of Critolaus, whom he succeeded as the head of the Peripatetic school at Athens. He was still alive and active there in b. c. 110, when L. Crassus, during his quaestorship of Mace- donia, visited Athens. Cicero denies to him the character of a genuine Peripatetic, because it was one of his ethical maxims, that the greatest good consisted in a combination of virtue with the ab- sence of pain, whereby a reconciliation between the Stoics and Epicm-eans was attempted. (Cic. de Oral. i. 11, Tusc. v. 30, de Fin. ii. 6, 11, iv. 18, V. 5, 8, 25, Acad. ii. 42 ; Clem. Alex. Strom, i. p. 301, ii. p. 415.) There are some more persons of the name of Diodorus, concerning whom nothing of interest is known. See the list of them in Fabric. Bibl. Gr. iv. p. 378, &c. [L. S.] DIODO'RUS (Ai6dwpos of Sinope, an Athe- nian comic poet of the middle comedy, is mentioned in an inscription (Bockh, i. p. 354), which fixes his date at the archonship of Diotimus (b. c. 354— 353), when he exhibited two plays, entitled Ne/cpos and MaivS/xevos., Aristomachus being his actor. Suidas {s. V.) quotes Athenaeus as mentioning his Avt)t pis in the tenth book of the Deipnosophistae, .and his 'EttikXtjpos and Uavrryvpia-rai in the twelfth book. The actual quotations made in our copies of Athenaeus are from the AvArjrpis (x. p. 431, c.) and a long passage from the 'EniKKrjpos (vi. pp. 235, e., 239, b., not xii.), but of the UavrjyvpKTTui there is no mention in Athenaeus. A play under that title is ascribed to Baton or to Plato. There is another fragment from Diodonis in Stobaeus. (Sejvn. Ixxii. 1.) In another passage of Stobaeus (Semi. cxxv. 8) the common reading, AiovvatoSy should be retained. (Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec i. pp. 418, 419, iii. pp. 543—546.) [P. S.] DIODO'RUS ZONAS (AioSwpos Zccms) and DIODO'RUS the Younger, both of Sardis, and of the same family, were rhetoricians and epigram- matists. The elder was distinguished in the Mith- ridatic war. Strabo (xiii. pp. 627. 628) says, that he engaged in many contests on behalf of Asia, and when Mithridates invaded that province, Zo- nas was accused of inciting the cities to revolt from him, but was acquitted iu consequence of the